- Preach my Gospel chapter 11 - How do I help people make and keep commitments?
- The principle of repentance from lesson #3 (pp 62-62 PMG)
Repentance and Enduring Conversion
Scriptures:
1 Ne 8:30 – What are the steps to enduring conversion illustrated in group #3 from Lehi’s dream? What does it mean to press forward? To continually hold fast? To fall down?
Mosiah 4:1-3 – Why did the people fall down? How does this relate to repentance? What can we do to help instigators have experiences like this? What were the results of this experience (Mosiah 5:2-5, 6:1-2)?
3 Ne 27:16-21 – What does the Savior teach about repentance? What dos it mean to be filled (v 16)? How does this relate to the sacramental covenant?
Moroni 8:25-26 – Diagram the steps in order. This is a simple formula for staying faithful – for all of us. We need to be continually repenting.
Quotes:
Henry D Eyring, Proclaim by the Spirit, New MP Seminar, 1999
What do you really want? If the concern and the desire of your heart is that they will not have the opportunity to be with their Father in Heaven and His Son, then one of the things that will happen is you will have the Holy Ghost…. The Holy Ghost is invited by pure intent and is repelled by selfish motives. That will be one of the ways in which you will make the most difference.
What you want will be largely determined by what you are.... The most important dimension of what you are is how your heart has been changed through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. That will determine largely what you want. We’ve all had the experience in those we’ve known and loved of seeing the change which comes when they are forgiven and know that their sins are washed away. You have seen what that does in terms of their motives. They want with all their hearts that others might have that same peace. That is one of the reasons why your referrals will so often come from a new member of the Church, particularly one who truly had faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, who truly repented, who knew that in the waters of baptism their sins were washed away. Those are the people who will talk to their relatives and their friends. The reason, you see, is their motives have been changed by who they have become.
For all of us, one of the great needs of our lives is to feel that the atonement has worked in our lives and we are being cleansed.
I will simply tell you that when they have that sense of who they are and to feel the gratitude that will flow over them to know that they are being forgiven, it will change their motives. And that change in motive will bring them the companionship of the Holy Ghost.
Dallin Oaks, Baptism, the Atonement, and the Doctrinal Basis of Missionary Work, New MPT 1993
The baptism we seek is only the baptism that follows sincere repentance. The baptism we seek is only the baptism that is part of a conscious coming unto Christ. The baptism we seek is only the baptism that signifies a deliberate decision “to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people” (Mosiah 18:8), and to bear the burdens Alma describes in the 18th chapter of Mosiah. Alma concludes those verses by characterizing baptism “as a witness before him that ye have entered into a covenant with him, that ye will serve him and keep His commandments.
Neal A. Maxwell, “Repentance,” Ensign, Nov 1991, 30
For some months, I’ve tried to emphasize repentance, one of the most vital and merciful doctrines of the kingdom. It is too little understood, too little applied by us all, as if it were merely a word on a bumper sticker. Since we have been told clearly by Jesus what manner of men and women we ought to become—even as He is (see 3 Ne. 27:27)—how can we do so, except each of us employs repentance as the regular means of personal progression?
Repentance requires both turning away from evil and turning to God. (See Deut. 4:30; see also Bible Dictionary, s.v. “Repentance.”) When “a mighty change” is required, full repentance involves a 180-degree turn, and without looking back! (Alma 5:12–13.) Initially, this turning reflects progress from telestial to terrestrial behavior, and later on to celestial behavior. As the sins of the telestial world are left behind, the focus falls ever more steadily upon the sins of omission, which often keep us from full consecration.
In this rigorous process, so much clearly depends upon meekness. Pride keeps repentance from even starting or continuing. Some fail because they are more concerned with the preservation of their public image than with having Christ’s image in their countenances! (Alma 5:14.) Pride prefers cheap repentance, paid for with shallow sorrow. Unsurprisingly, seekers after cheap repentance also search for superficial forgiveness instead of real reconciliation. Thus, real repentance goes far beyond simply saying, “I’m sorry.”
Dallin H. Oaks, “Sin and Suffering,” Ensign, Jul 1992, 70
President Kimball said, “Very frequently people think they have repented and are worthy of forgiveness when all they have done is to express sorrow or regret at the unfortunate happening.” (Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, p. 87.) There is a big difference between the “godly sorrow [that] worketh repentance” (2 Cor. 7:10), which involves personal suffering, and the easy and relatively painless sorrow for being caught, or the misplaced sorrow Mormon described as “the sorrowing of the damned, because the Lord would not always suffer them to take happiness in sin” (Morm. 2:13). (example of suffering for sin - Alma 36:12–13.)
Why is it necessary for us to suffer on the way to repentance for serious transgressions? We tend to think of the results of repentance as simply cleansing us from sin. But that is an incomplete view of the matter. A person who sins is like a tree that bends easily in the wind. On a windy and rainy day, the tree bends so deeply against the ground that the leaves become soiled with mud, like sin. If we focus only on cleaning the leaves, the weakness in the tree that allowed it to bend and soil its leaves may remain. Similarly, a person who is merely sorry to be soiled by sin will sin again in the next high wind. The susceptibility to repetition continues until the tree has been strengthened.
When a person has gone through the process that results in what the scriptures call a broken heart and a contrite spirit, the Savior does more than cleanse that person from sin. He also gives him or her new strength. That strengthening is essential for us to realize the purpose of the cleansing, which is to return to our Heavenly Father. To be admitted to his presence, we must be more than clean. We must also be changed from a morally weak person who has sinned into a strong person with the spiritual stature to dwell in the presence of God. We must, as the scripture says, “[become] a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord.” (Mosiah 3:19.) This is what the scripture means in its explanation that a person who has repented of his sins will “forsake them.” (D&C 58:43.) Forsaking sins is more than resolving not to repeat them. Forsaking involves a fundamental change in the individual.
Spencer W. Kimball, “The Gospel of Repentance,” Ensign, Oct 1982, 2
Repentance is the Lord’s law of growth, his principle of development, and his plan for happiness.
God is good. He is eager to forgive. He wants us to perfect ourselves and maintain control of ourselves. He does not want Satan and others to control our lives. We must learn that keeping our Heavenly Father’s commandments represents the only path to total control of ourselves, the only way to find joy, truth, and fulfillment in this life and in eternity.
Remember this, that forgiveness can never come without repentance. And repentance can never come until one has bared his soul and admitted his actions without excuses or rationalizations. He must admit to himself that he has sinned, without the slightest minimization of the offense or rationalizing of its seriousness, or without soft-pedaling its gravity.
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